of those institutions, a word of description | the young gentlemen and ladies who were may be necessary. It is more than a century since the conviction was impressed upon the rulers of that country, that neither by persuasion nor persecution could they succeed in changing the religion of the Irish people; means were therefore devised to provide for the gradual increase of Protestants by an extensive system of lures and baits to the more grown, and of education for the younger Papists as they were called. Schools were established in various places under the charge of a large chartered society, who received copious finds from the public purse and by private donations. The children of the poor Papists were received into those schools, their names changed, and transfers made of the new scions of the new Church from one part of the island to another, so that the tie of kindred should be forgotten, lest those dearly purchased converts should be, when released from their bondage, seduced to relapse into Popery; after having been fed and taught and clothed, during some years, they were bound apprentices to Protestant freemen in cities and towns corporate, and thus admitted to the enjoyment of franchises to which Catholics could never attain. Generally, they could not trace their kindred, but more than once has the evidence shocked even the most debased of those degraded, that they were living, as in matrimony, with their mothers or their sisters. portion of those freemen arose from the foundlings of Hospitals, and not unfrequently were the children of those latter institutions, the offspring of unknown and unmarried parents brigaded into the Charter Schools; whilst a third supply was furnished from the Charity Schools of the corporations themselves. The children thus educated not only form the great bulk of the poorer Protestant population of the cities and towns corporate in Ireland, but several of them have by their creditable industry risen to opulence, and many of the Irish Knights and Baronets, and not a few of the modern Peers are in the persons of their fathers or grandfathers indebted to those institutions. The walls of St. Stephen's chapel re-echo to the harangues of some Senators of this description, whilst the O'Conor Don, whose ancestors swayed the sceptre of the island for centuries, cannot, because of his creed, be admitted within that sanctuary whence, too, the British Howards and Talbots are excluded. Another The Catechism which has been published by the ladies under your auspices, was compiled for those Charter Schools, to inspire to prop the Protestant ascendency in Ireland, betimes, with a holy hatred of Popery, and to give its full tint to the Orange hue, with which it was deemed right to imbue them. To create horror and detestation of their Popish neighbours in the minds of those children of the Church and State, was the great end for which the publication was set forth; and indeed it is well calculated to procure this end. Was such the object of its republication at this side of the Atlantic? Is it possible that such is the end desired to be here attained? I should hope not. But let us see how the object was to be compassed. In the first place, by that pride with which the little chartered Orangeist is at all times taught to elevate itself above nearly two hundred millions of its fellowbeings, amongst whom are to be found the great bulk of the best and wisest of the human race, in the ratio of their numbers.— P. 1. A. 3. I THANK GOD, I am a Protestant. But it would not be right to allow this to pass without a reference; and as the words are not to be found in the sacred volume, a parallel will answer. GOD, I THANK THEE, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, and adulterous, or even as this publican. (Luke, xviii. 11.) See also p. 17. 92. Q. What think you of those who live in the communion of so corrupt a church? A. That they are under a most grievous bondage; and therefore I heartily pity them, and pray for their conversion. Besides which, in Q. 29, it despises our conduct. With a mind thus prepared by pride and mockery of piety, and contempt, the little creature is brought to view as our doctrine the mass of mistakes, misrepresentations, inconsistencies, contradictions, and historical blunders, of which the compilation is made up. In the fourth question a protestation is made against the ERRORS of the Roman Catholic religion, which phrase the American editor has substituted for "Popery" in the original! In Q. 8, it is taught that our conduct is not only UNREASONABLE, but EXCEEDINGLY WICKED. În Q. and A. 22, the little creature is told that our church is EXTREMELY CORRUPT in doctrine, worship, and practice. In Q. and A. 24, we are proved to it to be guilty of PRESUMPTION AND UNCHARITABLENESS. In Q. 26, we have CORRUPTED the purity and perfection of religion. In Q. 30, we are exhibited as not to be bound in allegiance by our oaths; we are faith-breakers, and persecutors, and perjurers. In QQ. 34, 35, and 36, as endeavouring to root out all who differ from us by FIRE AND SWORD: our religion is said to countenance and COMMAND MURDER, MASSACRE, and PERSECUTION, and to be ABHORRED BY ALL GOOD MEN, AS CON TRARY TO TRUE RELIGION. Allow me, Right Reverend Sir, to pause for a moment. Do, I entreat of you, give yourself the pain to look over my last paragraph. Do not turn from the expressions which are taken from a book published by your own authority as descriptive of my religion. I know you have a heart of sensibility, and can feel for others: it is, therefore, I press you to look at those expressions, and ask, what would you feel if the Roman Catholics of this city should so describe your religion? Think you not that they have feelings as keen as yours? What have they done to provoke you? I am no enemy of yours; my feelings towards you are kind and respectful; and it is because I believe you to be possessed of a good heart, I am convinced that the most effectual mode of creating in you a determination to comply with my request, is to show you the wounds which you have unnecessarily inflicted. Upon this ground I shall continue, and exhibit some other complimentary phrases of the Catechism. the sanction of their Bishop, should have published against their unoffending fellowI citizens such a book as this. Do not take it amiss, that I endeavour to break through that custom, and use my humble efforts to bring up your own good feelings to restrain you, henceforth, from such unbecoming phraseology. In Q. 66 we are again betrayed into IDOLATRY; and in 78 we are indulged with LEAVE TO SIN for many years, nay during our whole life; licenses for sin are PUBLICLY SOLD FOR MONEY in our church, and sinners are allowed to get other persons to do penance for them. In 83 we are SUPERSTITIOUS in our distinction of meats, as in 47 we were guilty of groundless superstition, which gives occasion to FRAUD and IMPOSTURE; and in 48 our frequent crossings were vain and superstitious, we idolatrously worshipped a cross, and prayed to a cross, which was GROSS AND INTOLERABLE CORRUPTION. In 49 we are guilty of a practice inconsistent with reason; in 50 we violate the scriptural injunction, and ARE MAD; in 52 we administer baptism with many superstitious ceremonies, and in 53 we violate the express command of Christ in the administration of the Eucharist. We have the marks of those who depart from the faith; we have destroyed the moral use of fasting, by teaching that luxury and drunkenness are not only lawful, but consistent with fasting itself; we promote superstition and idolatry by pilgrimages, and teach that persons may be delivered from purgatory for money, for which we sell the prayers of the church. Our doctrine offends the purity and holiness of God, dishonours Christ, nourishes spiritual pride in some, and ENCOURAGETH ALL MANNER OF VICE in others. In Q. 38 we are told, in the usual manner, that our doctrines are contrary to the Scripture: in Q. 39 that our practice is sinful, and is DIRECT IDOLATRY: in Q. 42 that it is DOWNRIGHT IDOLATRY: in 45 and 46 that, because we are sensible of our practice being coNTRARY to the second commandment, we omit that precept, and split the tenth into two, to make up the number. I ask you, sir, if this charge were true, would we not be the most nefarious criminals, who, being sensible of the contradiction of our conduct to the divine law, would rather maliciously pervert the law than amend our conduct?-Is it charitable to impute such motives to us for an act where all the evidence of the early church is in favour of our practice, and where the sense which our opponents would give to what they call a commandment, would exhibit God as contradicting himself? But, sir, I interrupt my progress. In Q. 65 we are exhibited as contradicting reason-as in 63 we contradict the senses. After contradicting God's law, our own senses and reason, what is to be the estimate of our character, especially when we are sensible of the criminality of our conduct, and deliberate in our delinquency? Was any body of people ever more insulted than we are by the use of such language as this? I am aware, sir, why gentlemen and ladies are not immediately shocked at such expressions. There is an old observation, that "custom reconciles." No other cause could have produced the phenomenon that the most polished ladies in America, with 93. Allow me to ask, is this the manner in which you describe the religion of thousands of your fellow-citizens in Charleston? Is this the character of the religion of the surviving father of your country, the venerable Charles Carroll of Carrolton? Is this the true expression of that faith which Xavier spread through India and Fenelon preached in France?-No, worse than this, you say, for the greatest errors and the worst corruptions still remain. 91. Q. Can you name any other errors and corruptions of the Church of Rome? A. Several others might be named, but those already mentioned are abundantly sufficient, to show that the Church of Rome hath, in a great measure, changed the pure and holy religion of Christ into a most wretched and dangerous superstition. Q. What do you think then of those who separate themselves from the Church of Rome? May they do it lawfully? A. They not only may, but are indispensably obliged by God's commands to renounce all such IDOLATROUS WORSHIP AND SINFUL PRACTICES, and may rest assured of his favour in so doing. "Come out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not THE UNCLEAN THING; and I will receive you, and ye shall be my sons and my daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." (2. Cor. vi. 17.) This indeed is truly the language of the embryo Irish corporators; this is the declamation of the aspirant to Orange celebrity in that land which God has blessed and man has cursed. But shall this be the language of the free and enlightened, of the liberal American? Shall this be the first lesson of religion which the amiable matron of Carolina is to teach her lisping child? And is this tissue of foul abuse to be taught by the recommendation of the venerable Bishop Bowen? With you, sir, it remains to solve that question. In closing this series of letters, sir, I am overwhelmed with shame: I have avoided as long as I could what yet remains, and what nothing but a strong sense of duty compels me even now to approach. Did you, sir, advise the ladies of Charleston to teach their children in the following words? 82. Q. What do you think of the obligation which the clergy and all the nuns and friars, and others of the Church of Rome, are under not to marry? A. It is so far from being commanded by God, that forbidding to marry (1 Tim. iv. 3) is set down as one of the marks of them who departed from the faith; and is often found to be a dreadful snare to the conscience, and an inlet to the most abominable wickedness. I have with feelings which I shall not describe read ten times over, the names of the ladies on your list of subscribers, and asked whether it was possible they could have published this. They are modest and pure. There are at least ten virtuous women, unmarried and considerably discreet, upon that list. Did they reflect upon the abominable retort, to which they expose themselves? To their honour, to their virtue, to their experience I commit the defence of the useful, virtuous and religious women whom this shameful and wicked paragraph traduces. Other aged ladies may be as pure in body and in mind as an unmarried, aged member of the Female Episcopal, Bible, Prayer-book and Tract Society of Charles ton certainly is: in the purity of the Protestant I find the defence of the Catholic. She forgets the protection of her own character when she assails the virtues of the Nun. But what, sir, shall I say to you? You! a Bishop! Have you ever known a Friar? Have you ever seen a Nun? Do you know a delinquent of either order? Upon what evidence do you condemn? I have known very many of both orders, and though I have known hundreds of the most truly religious men of the one description, the number was very small indeed of whom even suspicion whispered; and of the other sex, amongst hundreds and hundreds, not even the voice of calumny ever, to my knowledge, gave even one name to rumour. It is a delicate subject, not because of the semblance of truth in the foul insinuation, but because of the nature of the subject itself. I repeat, sir, what I have before written.-Your Church teaches a high morality. But I would state that upon the topic of which we now treat, I could, if driven to the necessity of proof, take the British newspapers for the last twenty years, and leave to you all the other special proofs which you could collect from the whole Catholic world, and notwithstanding the vast disparity of numbers between the married and the unmarried clergy, I would abide the issue of bringing case for case. But God forbid, sir, that I should ever find the cause of my religion so bad as to be obliged to grope in the sewers of your Church to drag for the vindication of my own. When I look to your religion, sir, I look to its tenets and not to its offscourings, and neither your Church nor mine teaches immorality, nor does either encourage it; though reprobates are to be found in the society, and perhaps in the ministry of each. Sir, I have done-my object was to show you the impropriety of placing in the hands of children, as a book of religious instruction, a work which contains so many misrepresentations, inconsistencies, contradictions, historical untruths, foul insinuations, and [so much] vulgar abuse of the great body of the Church of the Christian world; and having done so I leave it to you, and to the ladies who sent out this work, to act according to your own impressions. To me, sir, it was a painful and trying task. As I began with feelings of charity and respect, so I conclude, and again beg leave to apologize and to retract if any unkind or disrespectful expression has escaped from my pen. I remain, Right Reverend Sir, B. C. LETTERS IN REPLY TO ESSAYS, CONTROVERTING SEVERAL STATEMENTS MADE BY B. C. IN HIS LETTERS TO THE RIGHT REV. DR. BOWEN. CORRECTED AND REVISED FROM THE UNITED STATES CATHOLIC MISCELLANY. THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE READER. It can scarcely be necessary to say more than is expressed by the title-page, and is found in the following letters, to explain their cause. A little libel on the Catholic religion, miscalled a Catechism, was published in Charleston. B. C. undertook to show that it was a misrepresentation, and requested of Bishop Bowen to have it withdrawn: that prelate probably felt, as did several other highly respectable Protestants, that it was a scandalous little book, which did not express their convictions or feelings. The book was withdrawn. Here all might have rested in charity; but a writer, "Protestant Catholic," undertook to prove the truth of the little libel. B. C. felt this to be an aggression on himself, as well as on truth, and in the midst of many heavy duties, found himself called upon for a defence, for which purpose he wrote the following Letters. They are necessarily imperfect. He had no leisure to look to style or ornament. But he is certain they contain no untruth, and he hopes that they are not offensive. LETTER I. Bowen regarding the publication of a libel To the Editors of the Gospel Messenger and upon my religion, which was put forth as a Southern Episcopal Register, &c. Nec sum adeo informis: nuper me in litore vidi, Judice te metuam, si numquam fallit imago. Nor am I so deform'd; for late I stood DRYDEN'S TRANSLATION. GENTLEMEN:-I have ventured, though perhaps, as a correspondent of yours asserts, indelicately, to expostulate with Bishop "Of Bishop Bowen's responsibility for its being put among the tracts distributed by this Society, I say nothing, because authorized to say nothing. It is probable the matter came not under his cognizance, but that of other advisers during his absence. Or he may Protestant Catechism," under the indirect sanction of his respectable name. I intended to write to that Prelate inoffensively, yet firmly, plainly, but courteously, in such a manner as that whilst I should vindicate my own wounded feelings, I would subject his to the least possible infliction. How far have doubted the propriety of taking upon him to reject that which so many had approved; among whom had been the venerable Dr. White, in whose diocess it had been reprinted from an English edition, distributed by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge," and published and circulated by a Society similar in its constitution and design, to the Charleston Protestant Episcopal Female Tract Society. He seems to me, at least, to have been somewhat indelicately held up to the community as responsible for the offence thus given to Roman Catholics." Note to communication No. 5, p. 178, in the Gospel Messenger for June, 1829. I have succeeded it is not for me to say. They who have read my letters will judge me. I not only declared that I would avoid entering into any polemical disquisition to prove the Catholics right and the Protestants wrong, but still farther asserted that it was neither my object nor intention to insult or to vilify the Protestant Church, nor any of its institutions or members.* To adhere to the former part of this resolution, I frequently avoided explanation which required polemical discussion for its perfection; and was perhaps obscure, where, by a slight deviation from my rule, I would have been more intelligible. I distinctly stated also what my object was, "to show that the church of which I am a member, has been misrepresented, vilified, and insulted, and to call upon you (Bishop Bowen) NOT as the person who has done the injury, but as the officer who can afford the redress, to heal those wounds by arresting the progress of the evil." My present object is not to enter into controversy between the two churches, but to vindicate myself. This preliminary charge which I notice, is that I made Bishop Bowen responsible, and held him up as amenable for the offence given to Roman Catholics. My answer is the quotation of my own expression to Bishop Bowen, "I do not call upon you as the person who has given the offence, but as the officer who can heal the wound by arresting the progress of the evil." The writer makes me tax the prelate with wanton and calumnious aggression. I did not so tax him, for in fact I only called upon him to interpose his power as a man of peace and good will, to remove the spirit of bitter animosity. How far a writer of this description is qualified to correct misrepresentation, I shall leave to others to determine. magnanimity, and charity, than your correspondent appears to possess; I feel myself called upon to meet this latter, in a mode far different from that which the former was justified in expecting and entitled to demand. I am not, I trust, habitually disposed to prejudge, but the moment the gallant knight displayed his device in the lists, a conclusion which I shall not express, irresistibly forced itself upon me. It is an undisputed prerogative of each individual belonging to that host entitled to a nom du guerre, that without the charge of idolatry he may take for his emblazonment the likeness of anything in the heavens, the earth, the waters, or in a word, anything in existence. In times of decent chivalry, however, the rule was most strictly adhered to, never to go beyond what nature exhibited." Even our old heathen friend Horace-You know that brother idolaters should be more intimately acquainted than pure reformed Christians are with detestable heathens, you will, therefore, excuse me, if I sometimes quote a line from the latter. Then Horace really looked upon the above rule to be very correct. "Humano capiti cervicem pictor equinam Jungere si velit, et varias inducere plumas Undique collatis membris, ut turpiter atrum Desinat in piscem mulier formosa superne; Spectatum admissi risum teneatis amici ?"" De Arte Poetica. "Suppose a painter to a human head It is true this great master of the correct and tasteful admits an exception to a certain degree. Quidlibet audendi semper fuit æqua potestas Scimus, et hanc veniam petimusque damusque "Pictoribus atque Poetis vicissim : That my estimate of the character and influence of the respectable Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church of South Carolina was not incorrect, the sequel proves, and the writer acknowledges: because the Sed non ut placidis coeant immitia; non ut offensive little book is no longer openly ad- Serpentes avibus geminentur, tigribus agni." vertised for sale under the prelate's sanction," Painters and poets our indulgence claim, and the writer himself, in his fifth essay, p. Their daring equal, and their art the same. 178, for June, 1829, proceeds-"Of the ne- I own the indulgence-such I give and take; cessity of its publication in your city, I But not through nature's sacred rules to break. Monstrous! to mix the cruel and the kind, should have doubted, and am not sorry to be informed that it is not now exposed for sale." Having thus cursorily, and I trust satisfactorily, released myself from the imputation of unkind conduct or indelicacy towards a prelate who has exhibited more prudence, * Letter I., p. 27. Serpents with birds and lambs with tigers joined." And even for poets he gives the principle which must never be swerved from. "Aut famam sequere, aut sibi convenientia finge, Scriptor." 64 'Or follow fame, or in the invented tale Let seeming, well-united truth prevail." |